yoga – Page 18

Yoga Teacher Training Weekend #13 and Graduation

May 4, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

This last week was very emotional as I finished up my yoga teacher training. I am so happy to have my weekends back especially with this warm weather, but I will miss spending the weekend in the yoga studio with all the wonderful people I met. It was study, study and study till the test finally came.

I am a week late on recapping this, but still wanted to write it. Backing up to Friday, April 24^th after work. We began yoga teacher training with a student led class and then we ate. We had a wonderful potluck and everyone brought delicious food. We watched a movie talking about the yoga concepts we had learned. I actually thought it was a great way to wrap things up right before the test as I had been studying and seeing the terms on the screen was a great reminder of them. I made these cookies and this awesome variation on guacamole to go with chips.

We ended at 9 and then headed to the train. My train arrived on time, but then after leaving the city, we ended up on the wrong track for the next stop so we had to wait and reverse. In addition to that, I somehow ended up in the loudest car ever on the train with some fan that seemed broken. Eventually during our wait to reverse, I switched cars and it was the best peace and quiet ever! I also munched on some leftover cookies as I waited and stayed calm. As soon as I got home, I crashed right into bed.

April 25

Saturday morning I did some grocery shopping and tried to study. Our test was actually open book and I had marked my binder up with tabs for everything. This day was a little different for training as well since we had to meet up at the other studio, which I used to live by but now am about an hour away from, so I was not too happy about the driving. I left early and headed to Panera. My internet was down in my apartment so I used the Panera wifi and got an awesome lunch and my free birthday cookie.

At least that studying was a bit more successful being in a different area to spread out all my notes.

Then I headed to the studio at noon. We began with another yoga class, which was awesome. I honestly did not do much yoga in April since I moved away from the studio and was focusing on studying and getting back into weight lifting. After that we had a workshop with Wah. She is basically like a yoga celebrity I guess. Her music is often played at the studio where I did my training and is great for yoga classes. I want to get some of her CDs or something for when I teach. We did a bunch of chanting and partner work which was a lot of fun.

After the 3 hour workshop, we had a 3 hour break before Wah’s concert at the studio. It was a bit annoying to have such a long break and a late night when we had the test the next day, but we did what we could. Most of my yoga group went out for Thai food around the corner from the studio. The studio is in a little town so the stores and restaurants are pretty small. When we asked to move tables for a group of 9, it seemed like we took up half the restaurant. Service was also pretty slow for our group as we watched groups of two come in after us and leave before us. However, it was great to be enjoying a meal outside of the yoga studio with others and talk. The time really did fly by. When we finally all got our food, we ate it so fast (so no picture). It was delicious, but I probably wouldn’t go back there again due to the price of my pad thai.

Afterwards, some people wanted something sweet. Well, Village Treats happened to be across the street so we checked it out. I can’t eat ice cream, but as soon as I walked in, I saw chocolate chip cookie dough truffles and I was thinking, wow that sounds good. Again we took up the whole ice cream shop waiting in line but it was worth it. Though it was a bit of a chilly day to be eating ice cream for those who got some, but that cookie dough truffle was amazing!!! It really was like a partially baked cookie in a ball, dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. Perfect!!

I can tell you that was eaten in probably .25 seconds but I had to take a picture because sprinkles…and also it is probably best I never knew about this place when I went to the yoga studio so much.

We got back in time for the concert and we weren’t sure what to expect, but actually I really enjoyed it. I only stayed for half of it though because while the music was awesome it was also kind of putting me to sleep because of how relaxing it was and with it being dark outside and a long drive, I needed to head out.

I got home at 10 and headed right to bed to try to sleep well before the final test.

April 26

Sunday morning I got up and made some protein pancakes and then cleaned (to procrastinate studying…). I took the train an hour earlier and hung out at a coffee shop by the studio for a bit, talking to a few other yogis in my training. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was trying to drink tons of water too as I felt a headache starting which may have been a combo of stress, nerves and the heat. Finally it was time for the test.

As soon as I got it and started going, turning pages and putting down answers, I knew it was going to be ok. I knew exactly where to find everything. Some things couldn’t be found in books and I would say the most challenging was creating 2 10 pose sequences. I finished in 2.5 hours and used about another half hour to review everything. Then I flipped it over and was done.

I made it through despite my head hurting a bit. After everything was done, I felt relieved and just hoped I passed. Brian drove down and picked me up from the studio which was way better than waiting an hour for the train, especially with my headache really coming on.

Honestly I got home at 6:30pm and laid in bed. I didn’t fall asleep, I just didn’t feel well. Headache, tired, stressed possibly. I felt really warm and thought I must be sick, like I was overheating. I even thought there was a chance I would have to call into work sick Monday [I really should have because the extra day of rest probably would have really helped me]. I took Tylenol and that eventually kicked in and I felt better around 8pm. I then got out of bed at 9 to watch the kick off of the Food Networks Spring Bake off. (Yes, priorities).

I went back to bed at 10, to sleep this time and slept amazingly well, which was good.

With Brian staying for the week, I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could, but I still had work. Lately I had not been looking forward to work. I didn’t realize how many emotions I was balling up inside me until mid week when I finally broke down while talking to Brian about many things. Brian is much more laid back than I am, which helps me in some ways when I am creating too much stress for myself. After Wednesday, I really felt more like myself again and each day got better. After our long chat that night, I had also signed up for the free stress workshop by Alisha at Alisha’s Appetite. It really could not have been better timing. Sometimes you just need reminders on what to do to live with every day life stressors, etc.

May 1

Friday morning, all the yogis received an email that we all passed. That was good to hear. We were told as long as we didn’t hear anything, we were to show up for graduation. How awful would it be if we showed up and didn’t graduate?!

After that email, I was even more relieved. Friday evening we gathered in a circle, chanted, congratulated each other and reflected on our experience. What is amazing to me is that on May 2, 2014 was the day I showed up to the Yoga Garden for the teacher training meeting, only my first week living in the Philadelphia area and still jobless at the time. Now a year later, I am over 10 months at my current job and spent the last 6 months on weekends training and studying yoga. While I still have not figured out entirely what I want to do with my life, I am really happy to know how far I have grown in the last year.

Since this is long enough, let’s end with a few pictures. My teacher took a bunch of group photos and hopefully will email them to us soon. We enjoyed a dinner after our graduation and plan to meet up for coffee/tea once a month to get together and plan a 1 year reunion. It will be weird not seeing everyone so often.

Also, another note, I met those two lovely ladies in the picture on May 2, 2014. Great to be graduating with them!! Also one of my teachers is photo bombing in the background 🙂

Yoga Teacher Training Weekend #12

April 20, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

After a nice 3 week break from yoga teacher training, I was back at it this weekend. This was our second to last weekend. It is so hard to believe that it is coming to an end. I will be so happy to have my weekends back, but I will also be sad about leaving my fellow trainees. I just wanted to do a quick recap of this weekend.

First, let me say that this weekend was tough! Since I moved and no longer live near the yoga studio, I focused on weight training the last two weeks. My weight routines have been really working on my upper body strength and shoulders and although my shoulders have been sore from that, I felt that that work came in handy this weekend while we worked on our vinyasas. Friday night was my first full yoga class in over 2 weeks. At first downdog felt more challenging than usual, but then as we worked through the class, it felt great to be back. We then discussed our written sequence assignment and went over some concepts that will show up on our final exam. The evening went by fairly quickly. Then I walked to the train station with my fellow train buddies, but it was the first time we would part ways taking separate trains and unfortunately my train was 30 minutes later than theirs so I had 30 minutes to kill at the train station. Finally I made it home and headed right to bed as it was so late.

Saturday morning I went to Whole Foods and another grocery store for my groceries. I have to go over the bridge to NJ to go to my beloved Wegmans store and I just didn’t want to deal with that before yoga training. I spent an hour or so making a light alfredo pasta. Since I avoid dairy most of the time now, since becoming lactose intolerant somewhere around my senior year of high school, I avoid heavy cream which is used in a typical alfredo sauce. When I saw this recipe on Pinch of Yum, I wanted to try it, despite the fact that I do not like cauliflower. I love broccoli, but never have been a fan of cauliflower. I figured since it was blended up, I wouldn’t notice too much and I didn’t. The sauce consistency/texture was a bit different, maybe just the way I did it since I tried to cut the recipe in half, but it was still tasty and perfect for my lunches this weekend.

After making that and running around to clean some things up, it was time to head out to yoga training. We started with a class led by a fellow trainee, which was wonderful. Then we talked about the business of yoga, some things I knew and others I didn’t. Then we had a workshop, “Building a Better Vinyasa” which was super challenging. It felt like we did 100 push ups. So many low to high planks and then curling the toes under. I hate curling my toes under but I think that is my own foot problem and my foot cramps to the point of I can’t do anything sometimes. Sometimes it might be dehydration I know, but I think there just may be some sort of trigger point in my foot that causes it. Anyway I digress…back to vinyasas.

My form has definitely improved with my vinyasas through this training and I can turn my feet over one at a time so that my thighs don’t touch so I do that to avoid potential cramping. Also with these last couple weeks and knowing that I have become quite dehydrated on some long Saturdays, I am making sure I drink more water. It was about 80 degrees Saturday so I was already sweating when I arrived to the training and knew I needed more water. I ended up buying 2 bottles of water and a Honest Tea from Whole Foods Saturday to keep hydrated. I also felt by drinking more water, I was less hungry, which was great too.

The two hour workshop was quite the workout. Luckily after that, we just had some more discussions and created another sequence together as a group. I finally feel like I am understanding creating the sequences better. I am not super creative with them yet, but I feel better when I can contribute something. We actually got out about 10 minutes early on Saturday evening which was great, but we missed the earlier train by 5 minutes (the one time you want the train to be late, right?…). So it was a long wait at the train station but luckily we talked for a while together. My train comes at the same time, different track, so it is nice to have people to wait with. Since it was a long day and another late night, I headed right to bed when I got home.

Sunday morning is my relaxing morning (or rather a day when I don’t spend an hour shopping at the grocery store). I made protein pancakes, which has become a regular for sundays. It keeps me full for a while, which helps when we don’t get a lot of time to eat during yoga training. I also got my corrections on my yoga sequences done and some laundry. I even went for a quick 15 minute walk by the river, where I had fun sitting watching the water and making faces. #selfiesunday

[side note, I may be bigger and 25 years old now, but not much has changed here. #age6vs25]

Before I knew it, it was time to head out. My shoulders were very very sore so I was not looking forward to our workshop about floating and flying (aka the jump forwards and jump backs in vinyasa). We began with a nice yoga class and every moment I got, I had my Yoga Tune up ball behind my shoulder against the wall just pressing into the knotted area. With some help from the building a better vinyasa workshop on Saturday, I actually realized that my jump from downdog to forward fold is pretty good. The goal is to jump forward quietly. It is a lot of pressure in the shoulders and strength is definitely required to do it well, so I believe with my current weight workouts as supplement, it will help me build some more strength there. As I have mentioned before, not having a gym membership and weight training over these last 6 months has been really difficult. While I may have toned other muscles throughout this training, I definitely noticed when I went to do my first weight workout just how much muscle I have lost. It is great to begin to feel strong again!!

Our Sunday workshop had a lot more partner work and I quickly helped my partner, but we were both beat. I was happy to just sit and massage my shoulder. It was an insightful workshop though and there are things I learned, but definitely a lot of work to get there and I honestly don’t even know if all the jumping is something my shoulders can handle. For now I will stick with stepping back.

Our last half hour we discussed the topics on the exam. I really don’t even know how to study. I am mostly just placing tabs, post-its and trying to get familiar with my books, since it is open book. Hopefully I pass on Sunday. This week I can focus on studying during lunch breaks and after work.

Once I got home, it was time to prepare for the week, making my lunch and starting some chicken cooking in the crock pot overnight. I also had to stay up to watch the All-Star Academy finale, since I have been following for the last couple weeks. (It’s great having basic cable again 🙂 ) I knew the weekend was going to go by quickly, but it was enjoyable (even if my shoulders might be sore for a couple days). Hope everyone has a great Monday and good luck to all the people running the Boston marathon today!!

Let’s Talk Yoga…

March 26, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Last year, March 2014, I joined my first Instagram yoga challenge thanks to a blogger (Erin) I follow who was one of the hosts of the challenge #sweathappywithyoga along with Kim and Paige. Last year at this time, I began a new chapter in my life as I was unemployed, looking to move to Philadelphia (having never been there before) and wanting to join a yoga teacher training program.

I googled and researched for gyms and yoga studios and training programs, probably spending more time with that then the whole job searching thing, because #priorities. My googling led me to find The Yoga Garden in Narberth which also has a second studio in the city. It felt like fate as I moved in April 28, 2014 to my apartment and noticed a meeting on Friday May 2, 2014 about the yoga training program. I called the studio and told them I was coming to the meeting and showed up that Friday to a yoga studio I had never been to meeting my yoga teachers and a couple people that would become fellow yogi trainees. I wasn’t in the program just yet though as there was an application to fill out which I worked on for the month of May. The questions challenged my thinking and started to let me explore what made me decide to be a yoga teacher. I finished that at the end of May, at the time I accepted my job offer and the day I started my job on June 16, 2014, I got my acceptance letter to the yoga teacher training as well.

I was so excited not only for my job but also to have this opportunity to become a yoga teacher and to get to know myself on a deeper level.

So here we are in March 2015. This month to celebrate my 1 year of yoga challenges on Instagram, I have been re doing each of the poses from my #sweathappywithyoga challenge under #aliciainstayogaversary. Some poses it seems like I am worse at this year than last year, but what I have now that I didn’t last year is more knowledge about how a pose should be done, so I have been concentrating on that and let me tell you, some of these poses seem so much harder (because I am actually doing them correctly now…).

The pose I am most proud of is my crow pose. Can you believe that last year I could not even hold crow, but I was determined. I practiced and practiced that pose after I moved and had more space to practice and by summer I finally held it. It may have been one breath but it was more than a millisecond and now I can hold it and talk or take multiple breaths!! In fact I made crow my peak pose in my first yoga class I taught in my teacher training. I got complimented on how well I demonstrated the pose and showed how to do it using a block for help on height which I learned in a yoga class at my old gym.

Here are a few other photos of my progress or rather better alignment perhaps.

It is amazing to look back to see how much I have changed and grown over this past year, not only in yoga, but in life. The fact that I only have 2 weekends left of yoga teacher training is kind of crazy. I will be happy to have my weekends back come May, though at the same time I wonder what I will I do with all that free time?? I will also miss the awesome yogis and just learning so much about the body, alignment, yoga philosophy and more. What I am looking forward to though are hopefully some weekend trips this summer, lots of sunshine, walks after work, swimming in an outdoor pool and doing some yoga outdoors 🙂

Another event I am looking forward to in May is Yoga on the Steps. I participated last year and it was so much fun. Please help me reach my fundraising goal by going to my page to donate for Living Beyond Breast Cancer.

Weekend and Yoga Teacher Training #11

March 23, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Another weekend gone too fast. Friday was the first day of Spring and we got at least three inches of snow….

That picture is from when I got home after yoga teacher training on Friday night. There was no snow in the morning when I left. So it didn’t really feel like Spring with the cloudy snowy weather :/

Friday night I had yoga teacher training. The 3 hours went by quickly with going over our homework and next assignment. Just one more paper to write and then time to study a bunch for the final. Then we had a student led class that was nice and relaxing for a Friday evening class. Then we talked about mudras. I need to print some pictures so I remember what each one is, but it was definitely interesting.

Saturday morning, the roads were good and the sun was out, quickly melting the snow away. I drove to Wegmans for my weekly groceries. I am trying to not buy too much lately since I am moving so I have been eating a lot of meat from the freezer that I have stocked up. While I was at Wegmans, I came across a display of coconut water and the lemonade flavor caught my eye. I know that coconut things are so good for you (or at least that is what I hear) but I really can’t stand the scent or taste of coconut, so I just can’t use coconut oil or flakes. I even bought coconut flour once and that had a strong scent too. I am sure if someone made me something with coconut flour it would be fine. However, back in December, I had coconut milk chai which was actually pretty tasty and the coconut milk didn’t seem to have a strong scent or taste of coconut, so I thought I would give coconut water a try when I saw the lemonade flavor. I also bought a regular one as well as I have seen some green smoothies made with it.

Once I got home, I put half of the lemonade coconut water with some mango and strawberries I had in the fridge, added some ice and blended it up. It was a nice refreshing drink and I can’t say I tasted the coconut so it was fine by me. I was drinking it pretending it was summer as I stared outside to the winter wonderland…

Basically before yoga on Saturday and Sundays, I try to eat and drink tons of water all morning. I set my alarm for 7 so I have 4 hours before catching the train. Between my walking to the train, waiting, taking the train, etc, I have at least 1.5 hours to digest food and I never know when our breaks to eat will be so I find it works best for me to just eat constantly and drink tons of water before. That was another reason for my picking up some coconut water because I hear it is good for hydration and staying hydrated is something I struggle with especially on Saturday’s at yoga.

Moving onto yoga, we began with an hour practice that was student led. It was a great flow class! Then we discussed awkward situations when teaching and it made me question why am I doing this again, but it is helpful to discuss certain topics and ask our teacher, what did you do or what would you do. We then had a 3 hour Power Yoga workshop. So we began with an hour of Power Yoga and then talked about the basic structure of a power yoga class. I had never done a power yoga class before so it was interesting for me. The funny part was that our student led class had a very similar sequencing, so I guess the positive to that was we were warmed up for this sequence. I have heard if you do a class and then do it again later in the day, you might be able to get deeper from having that opening.

After that workshop, I stuffed my face with food. We didn’t really have any good time to eat Saturday which was kind of annoying. After eating we were headed right into backbends and adjustments so we were told not to eat too much, but I was hungry and my stomach was crampy so I needed the food. I actually felt better after I ate and the backbends weren’t too intense, not like a backbend workshop or anything.

Then the day was over, just like that. Once we ended I was thinking tomorrow is Sunday already. The weekend was ending so quickly.

By the time I got home, I talked to Brian on the phone and headed to bed.

Sunday morning I got up and could already feel the soreness from the Power Yoga on Saturday. I then made myself some protein pancakes and sausage and spent some time foam rolling out my soreness.

Then I used the rest of my lemonade coconut water to make a blueberry smoothie.

The rest of my morning was spent watching movies, writing and relaxing before heading out to catch the train to yoga.

For yoga training on Sunday we had a student led practice and then meditation. The last part of our meditation series. I will miss those on Sunday. Now we only have two weekends left of training. The end is coming up quickly. We are now on “spring break” from the training though so I have 3 weekends “free” and then back to back weekends in April. Now I just look forward to this weekend as I will be treating myself to a much needed massage Saturday and then packing up to move.

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